digital design

Spoonflower community member and design rockstar Ceri Staziker (Cerigwen) stops by to reflect on weekly Design Challenges. Read on as she shares when and why she decided to take the plunge into fabric design, offers advice, design tips, and the do’s and “best-not-to-do’s” of participating in Spoonflower’s popular themed Design Challenges.

“Get Lucky” by Cerigwen was an entry into the Ditsy Crickets Design Challenge

HOW TO ENTER: Post a selfie with your copy of The Spoonflower Handbook on Instagram using the hashtag #SpoonflowerHandbookSelfie and tag us (@spoonflower) to be automatically entered to win!

PRIZES, RULES, ETC: Each Tuesday, beginning September 8th, we'll randomly select one winner to receive two yards of custom-printed Spoonflower fabric of the winner's choosing. We'll pull one lucky winner each week (on Tuesdays) for six weeks. Please limit one selfie per person. Winners will be notified via an Instagram direct message.

We've been eagerly awaiting this day for years, literally. The Spoonflower Handbook has arrived–cue the confetti and pop the champagne! We're thrilled to finally share our first book with our community. The Spoonflower Handbook puts surface design for fabric, wallpaper and gift wrap well within the reach of creative people everywhere.

This book is an essential step-by-step user’s manual and project collection for this booming new creative outlet. Written for both new and experienced users of this print-on-demand technology, it covers everything from equipment to software to working with photos, scans, repeats, and vector files, and includes projects for the home and wardrobe as well as special tutorials contributed by members of the Spoonflower community.

Can't wait to pick up a copy? Go ahead and order one today! Share a photo of yourself on Instagram with the book using the hashtag #Spoonflowerhandbookselfie for a chance to win two yards of custom-printed Spoonflower fabric of your choice. We'll be drawing one winner every Tuesday for the next six weeks, so grab a copy and show us your best selfie!

Designing beautiful fabric doesn't have to be difficult. It can be as simple as sketching a few of your favorite drawing tools–like crayons! In today's tutorial, Candy Joyce shares how to create a quick crayon design and use it to stitch up a functional messenger bag–perfect for back to school!

Raise your hand if you’ve ever said, “I’m not an artist; I can’t design fabric.” Despite being fearless with a sewing machine, designing fabric seemed a little intimidating and I worried that I didn’t have the artistic skills. Then I read Candy Joyce’s tutorial for creating my own crayon inspired fabric to sew into a cute messenger bag. Her easy to follow instructions gave me the confidence to treat myself to a brand new box of crayons and rediscover that childhood artist hiding inside.

Candy: For this project, I wanted to capture the happiness I felt cracking open a fresh box of crayons and spending the afternoon drawing and coloring when I was little. I usually design on my computer, so I had to get into a different frame of mind for this hand-drawn design; I had to be more thoughtful with my design decisions as there is no undo button on crayons. I would normally dive straight into the design and then spend time rearranging and recoloring things later; instead, I took my time at the beginning of the project to plan where my colors were going to go and how I wanted it to look.

Take your textile design skills to the next level with a Wacom digital drawing tablet! We're offering one lucky winner the chance to take home their very own Wacom Intuos Pen and Touch Small Tablet! A great choice for anyone having fun with photos, drawing, or sketching, or just creating projects on your computer! The Intuos pen & touch small gives you all the advantages of working with a pen on your computer. It also adds the benefits of a touch surface in the same device.

Enter by Tuesday, December 16th, 2014 for a chance to win. The winner will be contacted via email on Wednesday, December 17th. Congrats to Michael Mitchell, winner of our Creative Cloud giveaway!

A shower curtain is the perfect gift for a friend, or yourself, that will be enjoyed year round! Read on to learn how Spoonflower crew member Eloisa created an engineered shower curtain using Silky Faille!

Looking to make a shower curtain, a mural, or any project with an image wider than the fabrics we offer? If so, this tutorial is right for you! With these instructions, we will teach you how to break up your image so we can print multiple pieces of fabrics that, when pieced together, will complete the large image. We chose to make a shower curtain, but these instructions can be easily adapted to wall murals, one-image duvet covers, etc.

Learn how to create a custom pillow using MS Paint from Spoonflower team member Eloisa!

You don't need a fancy design program to create basic fabric designs! Although some programs are better, easier and more appropriate than others, MS Paint is an easy program to start off using and to get your feet wet in the surface design life!

MS Paint is a simple program that is included as part of your Windows based computer. Like any program, it has different versions depending on the Windows version your computer carries. For this tutorial, I am using the latest version of MS Paint for Windows 8. The biggest challenge when working with this program is that it's pretty basic– therefore some features are not available or need some sort of work around.

Tools available:

MS Paint has a few great tools you can use, such as the paint bucket, colors, shapes and brushes. You can also reposition and resize your design elements by using the selection tool and dragging them towards the desired area. Here is an explanation of all the tools.

About sizing your image:

In Spoonflower, you will need to create an image with a minimum of 150 pixels per inch. MS Paint has a set resolution of 96 pixels per inch. Unfortunately, even opening a high resolution image in Paint and saving it with this program will default to 96 pixels, but you can check out Spoonflower's resources regarding sizing here.

For this tutorial, I will create an image the size of a Faux Suede fat quarter, so I will start off by opening a new image sized 4050 pixels wide by 2700 pixels high.

STEP 1: Open MS Paint, and click on File – Properties

STEP 2: A screen will pop up, enter the desired pixels there. In this tutorial, we are using 4050 x 2700.

Now it's time to create! For this tutorial I will be using the following tools:

Fill with color

Watercolor Brush

Shapes

Outlines / Fill / Size

Colors

STEP 4: Make sure you are paying attention to the two color blocks on the top menu, select COLOR1 and a window will appear with color options. Choose the color you would like for your background. For this tutorial, I use a pretty turquoise. Make your selection and click the OK button.

STEP 5: Click on the white background with the paint BUCKET TOOL that will appear automatically, this will change your background.

STEP 5: Add your design elements!

For this pillow, I wanted to make stripes on the background, so I used the RECTANGLE SHAPE, and then ensured that we had the desired colors selected for the OUTLINE and the FILL. An important note on this: the box COLOR1 will apply to your OUTLINE and the box COLOR2 will apply to your FILL. Repeat this step until you get the look you want, you can make polka dots, stripes and any shape available on the program. You can also choose to only use one of the two {outline or fill, you do not have to use both}.

I then added a white circle using the CIRCLE SHAPE tool and following the same guidelines as above.

Next I added a message inside the circle using the TYPING TOOL.

I created some arrows using the LINE SHAPE TOOL and the WATERCOLOR BRUSH TOOL.

STEP 6: Save your file! Note: you can save your file as a JPEG or PNG.

Once you've placed your fabric order and stitched up your pillows, you'll have lovely custom cushions to enjoy!

Learning to design fabric can be a little intimidating. Luckily for those interested in learning a new creative skill, there are many folks who have shared simple projects to help you get started. Check out these easy tutorials for getting your feet wet in the world of textile design!

Photographs can bring a meaningful touch to any DIY project, and PicMonkey is a free and easy way to prepare a photo for print. Check out this step by step tutorial for taking a photo and turning it into fabric to stitch up a pillow, tea towel, or your favorite sewing project!

Alison Kelly of Dahl NYC partnered with us for a special giveaway of her Imogen dress made in the fabric of one lucky winner's choice. Over the past three weeks we gathered entries and today we're excited to announce that Sarah Crowe is our winner– congrats! We can't wait to work with Marissa to create her own textile design and print it on cotton silk for her custom-made Dahl NYC dress. We'll ship the fabric off to NYC for Alison Kelly to create a lovely Imogen dress specially made for Sarah! Stay tuned for photos!